Jackrel wins grant to study ALS-linked proteins – The Source

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a relentless neurological disease, eventually shuts down the entire body, but the devastation begins at the molecular level. Over the years, researchers have linked ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, to a handful of proteins that don’t work properly due to genetic mutations. Over time, these distorted or “misfolded” proteins can clump together in the brain and nervous system, potentially disrupting normal nerve function and triggering the slow march toward total paralysis.

In theory, it might be possible to stop the disease by repairing and preserving these proteins – a possibility that has inspired ongoing experiments and tantalizing discoveries in the lab of Meredith Jackrelassistant professor of chemistry in arts and sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Neurological diseases may seem like an unusual area of ​​research for a chemist, but Jackrel’s expertise in protein structure and function has positioned her to make real progress against ALS.

She recently received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant worth nearly $430,000 to continue her research on Matrin-3, a poorly understood protein that appears to play a central role in some cases of ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a type of dementia caused by damage to neurons in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain.

The grant will help Jackrel build on previous work that suggests a potential way forward in the fight against ALS. Learn more in the ampersand.